


Turn your face away from the garish light of day

by NebulousNids



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Death, Gen, Hallownest is also nonbinary and uses they/them, Hallownest is sentient, Hurt No Comfort, Pain, Torture, no beta we die like the vessels, the pale king is mentioned but not here, the radiance is mentioned but not really here, this is 700 words of me describing how much the infection hurts okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousNids/pseuds/NebulousNids
Summary: Au where Hallownest is sentient. The infection is incredibly painful.Title is from "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera
Kudos: 5





	Turn your face away from the garish light of day

Incandescent agony suddenly lanced throughout Hallownest. Stalactites crashed to the ground as beaming light pierced through shields of inky darkness. Shadowed caverns that had been peaceful just moments ago were suddenly shaking in Hallownest’s pain as they were cast forcefully into painful, blinding light.  
Tunnels shook and crystals shattered as Hallownest writhed in pain beneath the Radiance’s blazing glare.  
Their bugs weren't faring any better and they could tell and they were furiously helpless to stop the excruciating gleam.  
The light was shining, burning into Hallownest’s deepest caves and it hurt, each shining ray burned through thick sheets of rock and refracting off crystals and impaling through layers of moss and painfully reflecting off pools of acid and they couldn't think it hurt so badly.  
But they knew they were angry.  
They knew they wanted the Radiance dead for this.  
Not for themself.  
But because they could feel every. Single. One. Of their bugs experiencing the exact same horrific invasion of light into places that were not supposed to be light and they could feel it breaking their bugs’ minds.

Days, weeks, months, years later Hallownest lost track. The pain never ceased. They simply learned to exist with it and each moment they did their fury only grew because each moment Hallownest tried desperately to avoid collapsing entire tunnels in their pain, their bugs were enduring the blinding light as well and they were only bugs. They couldn't handle it as well as Hallownest and they had to watch and feel as all of them, from the tiktiks near the surface to the weavers down in the darkest depths broke, shattered beneath the Radiances glare.  
Hallownest was angry and grieving and most of all in pain.  
The “king” (Hallownest never understood why he called himself their king. Did he not realize they were alive?) had come up with a plan to stop the light. It eased their pain, for a bit. Didn’t erase it, but they could think. The pitter-patter of a crawlids footsteps no longer sent spikes of agony so great that they would have gone unconscious, if they were capable of it.  
They were able to clearly feel the ruin that the light had left them in.  
They spent most of that time grieving all the lives that been torn to shreds.  
They grieved the lives lost to the pure and utter evil that was the radiance.  
They grieved the lives the “king” had destroyed in his attempts to save more.  
They grieved.  
Then a small bug, one of the half-void creatures created by the “king” killed their sibling. One who had long since died, whose body was taken over by small, tiny things that had entirely succumbed to the light.  
And they screamed.  
Not in the same way bugs did, of course.  
But crystals shattered, sending flying shards piercing into walls of rock that were shaking and cracking and breaking as tidal waves of acid crashed down as plants were torn apart as cliff faces crumbled and crushed pieces of hive. Hallownest and The Hollow Knight screamed in unison as light burst forth so quickly and suddenly and powerfully that Hallownest shook as it closed off tunnels and pushed through stone. They thought it hurt before, they thought it was painful before but that was nothing because now it was physically ripping them apart, casting its horrific glow inside solid heaps of stone and rock. It had already pierced where light like that was never, never, meant to shine and spread and illuminate and now it was tearing them apart to cast its luminescence where light physically could not reach and it hurt and Hallownest could do nothing but cry and scream, shaking with pain too much for them to bear, too much for anyone to bear.  
They didn't notice, couldn't notice as that same, small, half-void bug drove a nail through the moth’s head.  
They felt it though. The pain, the light, all of it was suddenly lifted and Hallownest was dark once more.  
There are no words to describe the feeling of having the unbearable agony you endured for centuries suddenly halted, stopped, killed.  
Their bugs were still in pain, still needed to recover and heal, (if they even could…) but it was over and Hallownest was indescribably relieved.  
The Radiance was dead.  
They could gently cradle their bugs and heal.  
It was over.

**Author's Note:**

> I hoped I have given you emotions about Hallownest


End file.
